Haunted
by CBratter
Summary: FutureFic. Logan and Veronica are married when Logan begins to have dreams of memories of his childhood. Some angst and some fluff to balance each other.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Veronica Mars or any of the characters from the show... Jake and Addie are all mine though.

This was kind of a brainstorm, and I wrote it quickly, so I hope it is okay. Feedback is always welcome.

Just to prepare you... I like Logan and Veronica and want them to have a happy ending. Since the show didn't grant it, I am writing them myself. This one is a bit angsty at points with fluff to counterbalance.

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* * *

He was sitting in the backseat of the car, shaking. Milkshake dripped across the leather upholstery and down the side of the door. Tears were already slipping from his eyes in fear of what was to come. Suddenly, his father was jerking open the door and screaming at him. He could barely make out the words as his ears began to ring, something about the cost of cleaning a car's interior and carelessness. The world stopped for just a moment, and then his face made contact with the window of the car. Blood rushed from his nose mixing with the tears now streaming down his face, as much from fear as from the blinding pain. His father stormed away as his mother rushed to his side, "Oh sweetie, what did you do? Did you hit your nose on the window of the car?" He stared at her silently. They both knew she had seen what had happened. Once again, she was ignoring it. _

Logan sat up in bed with a start. He ran his hand across his face and over his eyes, taking a deep breath. He felt a stir next to him and looked down. Veronica had rolled over and seemed to be waking up. "Honey, what's wrong?" she asked sleepily, sitting up. "Did you have another nightmare?"

"It's nothing. I'm fine." He answered and leaned over to kiss her softly. "I'm sorry I woke you."

"It's fine. I have to pee anyway," she said and slid out of the bed. "The little one is pressing on my bladder again." She ran her hand across her growing abdomen.

Logan smiled at her as she turned and walked toward the bathroom. He laced his fingers behind his head and flopped back onto the bed. He was still staring at the ceiling when Veronica crawled back into bed next to him. She rolled onto her side to face him and propped her head in her hand. "Want to tell me about the dream?"

Logan just turned to look at her without response. He knew she wanted to help. Over the past few nights he had dreamed about the abuse of his childhood. Veronica reached out and placed her hand on his cheek before kissing him gently. "It was my tenth birthday," he began, "we had gone to the zoo for the day. I spilled a milkshake in the car and ended up with a bloody nose."

Veronica was looking at him sadly. It hadn't been long after that she had met Logan, just a couple years. It ate at her now that she knew all his stories that she hadn't known when it was happening, that she couldn't stop it. He reached out and wrapped his arms around her. "Let's go back to sleep." She smiled at him softly before rolling onto her other side. He snuggled close to her and rested his hands on her stomach. "I love you," he whispered into her ear, "both of you."

"We love you too," she responded placing her hands on top of his and intertwining their fingers.


	2. Chapter 2

_The little boy was about five years old. He was sitting in his bedroom on the end of the bed. "Star Wars" and "Transformers" posters hung on the wall. Toys were abandoned on the floor. He had been sent to his room for embarrassing his parents in front of company. At the fancy dinner party that night, he had said a word he had heard on a TV show that day. He knew it was a bad word to use and wanted to see how people would react. His father had marched him upstairs in an instant and told him to wait in that exact spot until company had gone. He had. Now his door opened, and his father marched in. He had taken off his belt and was holding it in his hand. His hand reached to the boys shoulder and he jerked him into a standing position. Suddenly, the belt flew and the boy screamed when it made contact. "How dare you embarrass us in front of important people," his father screamed as the belt made contact again._

Once again, Logan sat upright in bed. This time tears were streaming down his face. He quickly glanced at Veronica. She was still asleep. He slipped out of bed, grabbing his robe, and headed downstairs. The clock on the microwave read 6:04. It wasn't much longer until he would need to wake up anyway. Logan turned on the coffee pot and sat down at the counter, head in hands.

This dream had been different. He remembered the day from his past. It was a significant one. That had been the first time his father had beaten him. Before then, he had received a few spankings but nothing like that day or what was to come. Unlike the dreams of the past week, this one had not been an exact replication of the events from his childhood. The difference had confirmed for Logan his suspicions of why these dreams seemed to be haunting him.

He heard Veronica stirring upstairs and knew she would be coming to find him soon. It was a rare morning they didn't wake up in each other's arms. He couldn't tell her about this one; he didn't want to. How could he tell her that he had seen this moment not from the eyes of the young boy being beaten by his father, but from the eyes of the man whipping his child to a bloody pulp? Suddenly, tears began to stream down his face again. In just a few weeks, he and Veronica would be bringing home their child from the hospital, but it was to what kind of home that would be that Logan was beginning to worry about.

Veronica found Logan sitting at their kitchen counter, his head in his hand, and his body convulsing with sobs. She hadn't seen him cry much in all the time she had known him. When Lilly had died, when he resigned himself to his mother's death, the night Felix had been killed, and a couple of others. He had cried the day she had accepted his marriage proposal two years earlier, but that had been out of joy. She knew there was something he wasn't telling her, but pushing wasn't going to get it out of him. Instead, she simply walked over to him and placed her arms around him pulling his head to her chest. Logan grabbed a hold of her and continued to cry.


	3. Chapter 3

_The young boy in the dream looked to be about thirteen now. He was sitting in a tree branch in the backyard a cigarette in hand. His fingers flicked clumsily at a lighter. He had watched this in enough movies he figured. Finally, he got the lighter to catch and sticking the cigarette in his lips he lit it. The coughing fit that followed had been what drew his father's attention. He had felt a hand grab his ankle and pull him from the tree. His head had hit a branch on the way down, and it, along with his back where he had landed, was throbbing. "So, you think you are a big man? Want to try smoking, huh?" His father had laughed down at him. "The last thing we need is the paparazzi snapping a picture of you up the tree smoking. Lets see how you really like these things." His father pulled another cigarette from the pack and lit it with ease. Then he bent down and pressed the lit end into the boy's upper leg just above where the leg of his shorts would fall. Tears began to build up in his eyes, but he refused to cry out. He wouldn't give his father the satisfaction. _

Logan kept expecting to at least get used to the dreams once it became clear they weren't going to stop anytime soon, but no such luck. It was still disconcerting to see these events from the eyes of the abuser. The boy in his dreams had begun to look less like him and more like what he imagined Veronica and his son would look like. Instead of his own brown eyes looking up at him from the boy's face, he now saw Veronica's blue ones.

He started to slip out of bed, but felt Veronica's hand grab his shoulder. "Oh no you don't," she whispered. "I have woken up in bed alone everyday for almost 3 weeks. That's more than all the years we've been together combined." She sat up and looked at him. "It's time for you to spill. Pretty soon we won't have time to talk about anything," she added rubbing her now very large stomach. "What's with the dreams? You stopped telling me about them."

"Believe me you don't want to hear," Logan snapped at her. She froze and stared at him. They fought, but usually in a bickering, witty jab kind of way. He never spoke to her like that. Screamed sometimes in frustration at her choices that put her in danger, but in all their years Logan had never snapped at her that way. He realized it to. He looked down at his lap, ran his hand through his hair, and reached out for her. He tucked a blond lock behind her ear, gripped the back of her head, and pulled her into a hug. "I'm sorry," he whispered gently, "so sorry."

"Logan, I love you, but you are starting to scare me, and we are having a baby. Please talk to me."

"I'm scaring me too. That is kind of the issue." Logan turned to face Veronica, who also shifted until she was sitting cross-legged on the bed looking at him. "You know I was having dreams about my dad, about him… hurting me when I was a kid."

"Yeah. You were telling me about them. Did something change?"

"The perspective."

"I'm gonna need a little more than that," Veronica stated.

"When the dreams first started I was seeing them from my own eyes, as a boy, as I remember them happening." Logan sighed. "Then I started seeing them from his eyes, my father's. Recently, it has gotten even worse. Now the boy in my dreams isn't me."

"Who is it?" Veronica asked when Logan paused. She was pretty sure she could guess by the way he was acting, but she wanted the answer.

He remained silent, but his eyes travelled to her stomach. Finally, he said, "It is what I imagine he will look like, our son." Tears started to travel down his cheeks.

"Oh Logan," Veronica said, pulling him to her as he continued to cry. "Logan stop worrying. You are going to be an amazing father. I know you will be."

"Veronica," he chocked out, "What if I am not? What if I… what if I hurt him?"

"You won't. I know you won't."

"How can you be so sure? How can you know?"

"Because I know you."

"My dad's father hit him; he hit me. It is only logical to assume. And you know how I react to things when I am mad. How many guys have you watched me pummel to a bloody pulp?"

Veronica wanted to laugh, but she stopped herself. "A lot Logan, but trust me, when it is our son, you will find another way. Will you trust me?"

"Yes. Can you promise me something though?"

"Of course."

"If I do hurt him, protect him, and get as far away from me as possible. Don't ignore it or make excuses for me."

Veronica just nodded. She knew how Lynn had dealt with Aaron's abuse of Logan. "Logan, have faith in yourself and me. Neither one of us is going to become our parents."

"Becoming your father wouldn't be bad," Logan said and smiled at Veronica.

"No it wouldn't."


	4. Chapter 4

_He was sitting on the couch choking and tears streaming from his eyes as his father shoved pear after pear down his throat. He was sure he was actually going to die. He had thought it a few times when his dad was beating him, but this was the first time he was absolutely positive. Then suddenly his mother was jumping up; she had been arranging the cheese and fruit platter more to her likely. She held the knife to his father's throat, and suddenly, Logan could breath again. Then looking up at his mother admiringly, her form shifted and he saw, not his mother, but himself looking back down at him. _

Logan woke with a start but couldn't quite remember the dream this time. He heard an unfamiliar voice, "Mr. Echolls, are you awake?"

"Yeah," he said rubbing his eyes. "I'm awake." He said up. A nurse was standing in the doorway holding a small bundle in a light blue blanket.

"It is just about time for his feeding. We thought you might want to hold him for a moment before we wake his mother."

The nurse crossed toward him as Logan glanced at Veronica's sleeping form in the bed next to him. He straightened up in the chair and accepted the offered bundle. He looked down at the tiny baby in his arms. From the first moment he had held Jacob Logan Echolls in his arms, immediately after his birth, he had known Veronica was right. He knew he could never hurt his son, and that he wouldn't think twice about injuring anyone who tried to.

The tiny baby yawned and stretched his arm against the blanket wrapped tightly around him. Logan adjusted the blanket, and Jacob's arm stretched out, his hand wrapping around Logan's finger. "Hey there little man," Logan said, running his thumb across his son's forehead. "Do we need to wake mommy up to feed you?"

"She's awake," Veronica said quietly from her bed. Logan looked up to see her smiling at him.

"You didn't say anything," he said questioningly.

"I was watching my guys," she answered as Logan stood and helped her sit up before placing Jacob into her arms. "My god Logan, he looks so like you."

"He'll be a lady killer than, I guess," Logan replied with a smirk. Then shifting to seriousness, he added, "I like the exchange of your eyes on the package, though." He kissed her deeply just before the nurse returned to help Veronica with feeding the baby.

* * *

Jacob Echolls was climbing out of the backseat of his dad's car when he realized he had forgotten to grab his backpack from the floor behind the driver's seat. He leaned over to grab it not thinking about the milkshake in his hand. "Uh oh," he said, as he watched milkshake dump all over the seat and floor of the car. Jacob looked up at his father who was standing behind him by the door. "Sorry dad," he said. "I didn't mean to."

Logan looked down at his son and the all too familiar scene of chocolate milkshake on leather upholstery. He smiled as his wife watched him from the other side of the car, holding their three-year-old daughter, Addie, in her arms. "Hey Jake, buddy, don't worry about it," he said. "Accidents happen. Why don't you take your stuff inside and grab some towels and come help me clean it up?"

"Okay dad," Jake hurried toward the front door of their house his backpack over one shoulder.

Logan smiled at Veronica again as she crossed behind the car and kissed his cheek before saying, "We girls are going inside. Do a good job cleaning." With a wink, she walked toward the house as Jake almost collided with her running back to his dad with an armful of dishtowels.


End file.
